


Coming Home

by TeaJay



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, SHIELD Daddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:53:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2335970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaJay/pseuds/TeaJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson died four months ago</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

Nick Fury is exhausted. For the past four months he’s suffered from a bone deep weariness that not even a good night’s sleep alleviated, not that there have been many of those in the past few months either. It’s after midnight and he’s made it home to his apartment but although he’s taken his eye patch off and put on his robe he’s still doing paperwork when he hears the knock at the door. He knows that knock. He’s heard it hundreds of times over the twenty five years he’s known the man that he devised it with; the man who died four months ago. The rage he’s been carrying with him swells and he is suddenly blindingly angry. Whether this is a cruel hoax or a trap whoever is using his dead lover to fuck with him is going to regret it. He grabs his sidearm and enters the hallway. Phil’s familiar face on the security camera feed makes his stomach drop and he feels like been doused in ice water.  


He’d buried Phil Coulson four months ago in a military cemetery in Arlington. He’d watched the light go out in his best friend’s eyes as the medics rushed to him, too late. He’d called Phil’s stepfather and sisters and told them Phil had died a hero knowing those words would be as empty to them as they’d been to him. He’d sat in this lonely, hollow apartment and gotten quietly drunk on scotch staring at Phil’s bloody cards.  


The man that looks like Phil knocks again the same series of hard knocks and light taps. Nick presses the intercom button.  


“Whoever the fuck you are and whatever the fuck you want you won’t get it dressing up in my dead friend’s body.”  


“The Truth Shall Make You Fret,” the man says and Nick is confused before remembering it’s Phil’s ID code because Phil’s a fucking a nerd and he keeps going giving more codes and Nick can feel a thrill going through him a mix of apprehension and excitement. And Phil doesn’t stop, “We met in Afghanistan, August 1989. My first car I named Carmen…”  


He goes on and on and Nick knows someone could be impersonating him could have found out all of this information somehow. But how? They couldn’t have tortured it out of him he’s dead. Has been dead for months.  


“The keypad,” Nick says, finally. Phil doesn’t put in a key code, instead he presses the button that activates the finger print scanner. It beeps a confirmation and Phil Coulson appears on the monitor. Nick opens the door. He keeps his gun trained on the man but he doesn’t make any threatening moves.  


“Hi,” Phil smiles weakly. Nick can see now that he’s pale and shivering a little in the chill air. He’s wearing the suit he was buried in.  


“How?” is all Nick manages to say.  


“I don’t know,” he sees the look on Nick’s face, “I don’t, Marcus. I-I remember dying, you were there telling me not to clock out but I couldn’t-I couldn’t hold on. It went dark and I remember lights and color- and it was so beautiful. I don’t know how long that lasted. And then- I woke up. I was lying on the ground in front of my own gravestone in Arlington and- I didn’t know what to do. I’d died. Then suddenly I wasn’t dead anymore and I- I came here because what the fuck else was I going to do?”  
Nick wants to believe him. He wants Phil back with a desperation he’s never felt before but he can’t wrap his head around this.  


“You just, what, magically returned to life?” Phil shrugs.  


“I don’t know. We’ve met people with what we would consider magic before. Maybe you wished really hard and clapped your hands?”  


He says it a little teasingly but Nick thinks of all the times he’s wished for exactly this. All the times he’d begged for Phil to return to him safe and unharmed. The deals he’d offered to any deity, any being that would listen just so long as Phil Coulson lived. No one had ever answered. Though he supposes a living, breathing Phil on his doorstep could be considered answer enough. He looks at Phil, his cheeks have gone a little pink with the cold and he’s got his arms crossed, a stance he gets when he’s uncertain. He makes his decision.  


“I think I may have,” Nick says quietly, lowering his gun and stepping out of the doorway allowing Phil inside. “I’ll have to call it in there’ll be tests and God, Cheese- do you know how much paperwork it will take to bring someone back from the dead?”  


“Actually, no,” Phil says, “I don’t think we’ve ever had to do it before.”  


“Do we even have paperwork for bringing people back from the dead?”  


“Yes,” Phil chuckles a little, “It's in the archives, I told them to keep it when we were throwing out all the outdated stuff. Prepare for every eventuality, you know. I just didn’t think it would be me.” He’s smiling at the irony of it but he also looks worn and tired. Nick wonders exactly how he got here from Arlington.  


He reaches out slowly so as not to startle Phil and pulls him close. They just stand there foreheads together for a long moment until Phil pulls Nick into a hug. It’s awkward as all Phil’s hugs tend to be and Nick feels a rush of tenderness overwhelm him. Phil’s alive. Whatever he’s promised, whatever devil comes to claim its due, whatever he’ll owe for Phil Coulson’ s soul, this is worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on my tumblr and was based on an RP prompt: Your character has just come back from the dead and knocks on my character’s door for help
> 
> Phil’s code is a quote from The Truth by Terry Pratchett because I am convinced he reads the Discworld novels.


End file.
